Is this really all you've got

George Will takes it upon himself to defuse teh Bomb that is Jim Webb, and in doing so, fails miserably:

Webb certainly has conveyed what he is: a boor. Never mind the patent disrespect for the presidency.

So, what you're saying is, is that Jim Webb is a big meanie? He's rude? Uh, okay.

Webb's more gross offense was calculated rudeness toward another human being -- one who, disregarding many hard things Webb had said about him during the campaign, asked a civil and caring question, as one parent to another.

One parent to another? Really? To me it looks like a smug National Guard party boy whose daughters are embarrassing themselves in Argentina trying to play good ole boy with a Vietnam veteran whose son is risking his life to prosecute party boy's ill-conceived war. When the person who is irresponsibly putting your child in harm's way is standing right in front of you pretending to make nice-nice, protocol be damned.

When -- if ever -- Webb grows weary of admiring his new grandeur as a "leader" who carefully calibrates the "symbolic things" he does to convey messages, he might consider this: In a republic, people decline to be led by leaders who are insufferably full of themselves.

Is he talking about Karl Rove & Co.?

[...]Well.

In his novels and his political commentary, Webb has been a writer of genuine distinction, using language with care and precision. But just days after winning an election, he was turning out slapdash prose that would be rejected by a reasonably demanding high school teacher.

Oh, dear lord. Please, George Will, please tell me you're going to focus on the substance of his arguments about social inequality and not on lapses in stylistic judgment?

Never mind Webb's careless and absurd assertion that the nation's incessantly discussed wealth gap is "the least debated" issue in American politics.

And never mind his use of the word "literally," although even with private schools and a large share of the nation's wealth, the "top tier" -- whatever cohort he intends to denote by that phrase; he is suddenly too inflamed by social injustice to tarry over the task of defining his terms -- does not "literally" live in another country.

Crud.

So, there you have it from George Will. Jim Webb is no fun at ginned-up state functions and is given to hyperbole. He's not going to be invited to D.C. cocktail parties, so Virginians like, totally shouldn't want him as their senator.